FIFA/EASFC and PES/eFootball: Contrast & Compare

[manmachine]

The thing I find most remarkable is how I fully expect fifa 20 / pes 20 to be clearly better games than their predecessors, yet not good enough for me to consider buying. That's how bad I thought both were last year. That's just me though, fair play to anyone else who will find a way to enjoy them. Personally I'm comparing them to much better games that we've had in recent years and not last years abominations.

Konami needs to revamp/fix tactics like many are saying, and for me, passing as well. Even manual passing does little to engage my brain, with players ignoring the ball on a regular basis. And then I fully expect systems like team spirit to make matters even worse in ML. I hope they can improve all these things, but the frustrating thing with konami, is that it's not the first time they had a good base to work with and improve. It happened with 14 and 17, but then we get games like 19, with completely broken AI. It makes no sense! After playing the pes18/19 demos for like an hour and then uninstalling them in disgust and forgetting about the game for a year, I played the current demo for a few days. That's an improvement, but please keep improving konami.

Fifa is Fifa, I expect horrible animations that feel nothing like football played on planet earth, but if positioning is better and passing is not the same brain numbing assisted mess (fifa 19 is the only footy game that made me fall asleep while playing, there is absolutely nothing about it that engages my brain) there is a chance it might scratch that itch, but from what I'm seeing I'm not too optimistic. I just can't write it off completely until I've played the demo/or my 10 hours of EA-rly access.

 

[mfmaxpower]

This is so true.
Fifa players mark automatically but have a horrible tendency to just let the ball roll past their feet if you aren’t controlling the player.

PES AI on your team will intercept the ball far more often, not perfect by any means, but miles better in this regard.

Gotta say, I feel the complete opposite. One of my biggest issues with PES 2020 is how slow and poor AI controlled players are at recognizing the ball and going after it. I regularly watch players not go for an intercept they should, and I want to pull my hair out at how poor loose ball situations are.

All in all, PES still feels way too on the rails and when players need to react to phases of play that requires them to leave those rails, they don't do it, or are too slow to do so.

FIFA for me has issues here too but is far better and quicker at recognizing the ball and going for it when they should. And this was even improved this year in the beta, whereas for me it almost feels like PES has gotten worse.

 

[OBH]

Gotta say, I feel the complete opposite. One of my biggest issues with PES 2020 is how slow and poor AI controlled players are at recognizing the ball and going after it. I regularly watch players not go for an intercept they should, and I want to pull my hair out at how poor loose ball situations are.

All in all, PES still feels way too on the rails and when players need to react to phases of play that requires them to leave those rails, they don't do it, or are too slow to do so.

FIFA for me has issues here too but is far better and quicker at recognizing the ball and going for it when they should. And this was even improved this year in the beta, whereas for me it almost feels like PES has gotten worse.

Ha, its funny how vastly different players experiences are with football games. Here’s mine, and I’d love to hear how yours differs:

So, on PES 2020 demo, I find holding CPU pressure to be an absolute liability in any 1on1 situation. Tracking back is fine, but if they’re face-to-face with the attacker, holding pressure just makes the AI player move directly towards the ball and any skill will get by them with ease. So to get round this I try to do 100% of the jockeying myself in an attempt to move the attacker where I want them to go, and let the AI intercept the ball when they pass. Matic is a player in particular who seems to make absolutely loads of interceptions for me. This wasn’t always the case on PES, was it only on 2016 when CPU pressure was RIDICULOUSLY overpowered? I’m much, much happier with the defending now. My ‘issue’ with AI defending in this one is specifically when I’m holding CPU pressure. While I have the button pressed I totally agree with you in that balls roll past them and they completely ignore it.

By contrast, CPU pressure of Fifa is absurdly powerful. It’s basically auto jockey, and a high enough rated defender is insanely difficult to beat. Yes, they stop a couple feet away from them and won’t actually engage and take the ball unless the attacker moves towards them, but they can contain players out wide far, far too easily. I also find that the ball can roll centimetres past midfielders feet and they just let it go, it’s utterly infuriating, so I defend the total opposite when playing Fifa - use CPU pressure, while I intercept the passes.

One last point about the ‘on rails’ part, is even though I personally think it’s absolutely fine on PES, one particular situation it does really, really poorly in is if you misplace a through pass, but by luck it just happens to turn out to be a good pass to another one of your players, the game will continue to keep the original intended target locked onto the ball, even if he has no chance of getting it. Fifa, at least in my experiences, is far, far better at recognising this and locking the new player onto it instead, where as PES can create some bizarre looking situations where the target player is running past his own team mates in an attempt to get the ball even if they’re closer to it.

As I said though I’d love to hear your experiences on it.

 

[mfmaxpower]

Ha, its funny how vastly different players experiences are with football games. Here’s mine, and I’d love to hear how yours differs:

So, on PES 2020 demo, I find holding CPU pressure to be an absolute liability in any 1on1 situation. Tracking back is fine, but if they’re face-to-face with the attacker, holding pressure just makes the AI player move directly towards the ball and any skill will get by them with ease. So to get round this I try to do 100% of the jockeying myself in an attempt to move the attacker where I want them to go, and let the AI intercept the ball when they pass. Matic is a player in particular who seems to make absolutely loads of interceptions for me. This wasn’t always the case on PES, was it only on 2016 when CPU pressure was RIDICULOUSLY overpowered? I’m much, much happier with the defending now. My ‘issue’ with AI defending in this one is specifically when I’m holding CPU pressure. While I have the button pressed I totally agree with you in that balls roll past them and they completely ignore it.

By contrast, CPU pressure of Fifa is absurdly powerful. It’s basically auto jockey, and a high enough rated defender is insanely difficult to beat. Yes, they stop a couple feet away from them and won’t actually engage and take the ball unless the attacker moves towards them, but they can contain players out wide far, far too easily. I also find that the ball can roll centimetres past midfielders feet and they just let it go, it’s utterly infuriating, so I defend the total opposite when playing Fifa - use CPU pressure, while I intercept the passes.

One last point about the ‘on rails’ part, is even though I personally think it’s absolutely fine on PES, one particular situation it does really, really poorly in is if you misplace a through pass, but by luck it just happens to turn out to be a good pass to another one of your players, the game will continue to keep the original intended target locked onto the ball, even if he has no chance of getting it. Fifa, at least in my experiences, is far, far better at recognising this and locking the new player onto it instead, where as PES can create some bizarre looking situations where the target player is running past his own team mates in an attempt to get the ball even if they’re closer to it.

As I said though I’d love to hear your experiences on it.

Hmm, I wonder if we are speaking to different things? (And I'm also just speaking to single player.)

I wasn't really speaking so much to one-on-one defending. In PES, my issue with interceptions is how your defenders won't react to passes that they should be able to intercept. Or how you'll switch to a player for an interception, but the on the rails thing locks you into a movement pattern that then delays you getting to that interception. But really, it's the loose ball situations that are the worst. PES's AI is just too slow to react to transitions and loose ball situations. You also see the ball just bouncing off of players because, again, the AI is just slow to recognize these situations.

I don't want to make it sound like this is gamebreaking, but AI awareness, especially in loose ball situations, is a weakness in PES for me.

But I don't think I've ever heard the teammate pressure function in FIFA being described as absurdly powerful. For years many of us have argued that it's largely pointless. I know the competitive folks hate it, and there have been complaints of it being OP in online play, especially when playing with 90+ rated defenders, but I've never thought of it being all that effective in single player. At least not on the highest difficulties. I basically use it only to get players in the right position, but find it super ineffective at actually marking the attacking dribbler.

If we're actually comparing the two teammate pressure features, IMO it's PES's that's far more effective. Now, I'm not playing on the highest level in the PES demo, cause then I just never score, but on Top Player I find teammate pressure to be fairly effective. I mean, in FIFA teammate contain only contains; in PES, they'll actually put in a tackle and win the ball.

One thing to consider though is that defending in the FIFA beta was a very different experience from 19, with relying on the AI to be less effective. We'll have to see at release how the two really compare.

 

[Emroth]

I don't want to make it sound like this is gamebreaking, but AI awareness, especially in loose ball situations, is a weakness in PES for me

Agree with this. Its especially visible on PA0, where passes are not always on point and are often into space. I have plenty situations, where Id have 3 players and not a single one is interested to get the ball. To make it worse - sometimes I also cant switch to the one I want.
Ball is going towards a player, I see he's asleep, so I want to switch to him and get the ball myself, but instead it switches between the other two on each side of the ball, even tho the one I want is closer and ball is actually going towards him.
Its not gamebreaking, just annoying.

But its one of those situations, where I always think Konami way of fixing it would be get rid of randomness, or make passes more accurate, which would annoy me even more.

 

[Chris Davies]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

 

[Emroth]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

I love the way even the very first pass (before the ball gets to AI) just bounced of a player, like he was just a cone on the road.

 

[Peter Withe]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

I've actually seen a few people here say that there's no scripting in PES. Utter BS. When the CPU decides to score in ML, there's nothing we can do about it.

 

[Filippo-Inzaghi]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

Order cancelled.

 

[mfmaxpower]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

I agree, though I think this is pretty perfect example of the larger issue that, like you say, stops me from really falling for PES this year. Even though the football onscreen looks fantastic, for me there's always this sneaky suspicion about the underlying design approaches that Konami takes to create that result. It's this suspicion that much of the freedom, control, randomness that we see in PES is kinda fake, that the game has these strong invisible hands that guiding everything.

I wouldn't say that matches feel predetermined, but it does feel to me like we don't have quite as much control over outcomes as we should. (And this is surely made worse by the short halves in the demo, so you just don't get all that many chances to determine the outcome of the match.) It kinda feels like rather than us playing the game, we're almost playing the game in partnership with the game. Or something; I dunno.

I'm really looking forward to the release of PES, but I've a strong sneaking suspicion it'll be FIFA again mostly for me because PES - for all the brilliant football on display - doesn't quite satisfy the gamer itch. The football is mostly excellent, but the gameplay experience is still just so heavily assisted and restrictive that I rarely experience the high thrill of victory or scoring like you should in these games.

 

[OBH]

But I don't think I've ever heard the teammate pressure function in FIFA being described as absurdly powerful.

Have a little look on youtube. Takes 2 seconds before you'll find people complaining that AI defending is far too good on Fifa when you know how to use it. It's just cos it works so different to PES. Better at containing / jockying players out wide than actually tackling.

If we're actually comparing the two teammate pressure features, IMO it's PES's that's far more effective. Now, I'm not playing on the highest level in the PES demo, cause then I just never score, but on Top Player I find teammate pressure to be fairly effective. I mean, in FIFA teammate contain only contains; in PES, they'll actually put in a tackle and win the ball.

What I mean is, on Fifa, if you hold AI pressure they may not actually take the ball, but it's ridiculously difficult to get past them because the jockey you perfectly stride for stride. Yes, if I stand still they don't tackle, but who stands still on Fifa anyway? Naturally I'll want to try and beat them and lose the ball.

By contrast, on PES I pray the opposing player spams AI pressure to tackle because getting by them is so easy. They just head in a straight line towards the ball and don't react to any quick movements, so a skill move, double tap sprint, anything like that just flies past them.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

This is not a PES only issue.
I mean, Fifa 18 for example, the tackling was so bad that it was more effective to just walk into a player. No animation, nothing, just walk into them and take the ball.

I was just about to cut up a Fifa 20 video and show the same thing happening as in the clip you've shared. Doesn't happen 6 times in a row like it does there, but even has a defender partially glitching inside the attacker then clearing it.

Again, this isn't 'PES good Fifa bad' comment, just that they both suffer for something similar. Fifa's is more watching the ball ricochet off 2 players 6 times before it finally bounces away and neither of them react to it.

 

[Dennis_87]

This absolutely perfectly nails why I just can't love PES any more.
And it's what people mean when they say PES is "robotic".

You could say "how often do you concede from this though?"
Not the point - the fact that defending and physicality is represented like this is atrocious.

You could say "how often do you see that happen?"
As in, each incident one after another? Not often. But individually? Every single game, at some point.

I'd be getting out a baseball bat and smashing up the console if this happened to me.

If you pay attention,when Sule tackles and wins the ball the first time,he has half a second to clear the ball with or pass it to his teammate on the right.Instead he chooses to take an extra touch and to control the ball and then the cpu steals the ball from him.So it could be a user's mistake if he didn't push the clear button fast enough and made a touch instead.These videos can't say much as long as there is always the possibility of incorrect user input involved in it also.

 

[Chris Davies]

If you pay attention,when Sule tackles and wins the ball the first time,he has half a second to clear the ball with or pass it to his teammate on the right.Instead he chooses to take an extra touch and to control the ball and then the cpu steals the ball from him.So it could be a user's mistake if he didn't pushed the clear button fast enough and made a touch instead.These videos can't say much as long as there is always the possibility of incorrect user input involved in it also.

That's not the point though - I'm not crying "script", I'm crying "rails". Yes, he could clear the ball at one point. But I'm not saying it isn't avoidable, I'm saying everything about this sequence is terrible.

You don't have the fluidity in your movement to respond and/or block the ball organically, only to press "pressure" and move briefly in a short straight line (the ball is the same, not free).

In each of these moments all the players (even the AI) are on rails, locked onto their actions and it all plays out like they're trying to move past each other in a corridor, NOT playing football and trying to kick the damn ball.

In FIFA it goes too far the other way, and you can kick through your standing leg to hit a shot with a defender next to you. But at least your players know how to use their bodies.

PES players remind me of this tweet I saw the other day, in that they seem to be based on aliens operating a human body for the first time:

 

[Emroth]

I think we have to be fair and admit that it looks a bit like this:

Especially that "defender" in the middle, who is usually the guy im trying to switch to..
Question is - which issues we, as users, are able to accept and look pass them.
Its a bit baffling how in 2020 editions, we have so many little things lacking, that should be considered as basics?

I personally find these clips funny and even if they cause frustration - it quickly passes and I keep playing.
But I do see how it can put some people off completely. Im completely put off by Fifa clips, from different reasons.

 

[Peter Withe]

I think we have to be fair and admit that it looks a bit like this:
View attachment 19253
Especially that "defender" in the middle, who is usually the guy im trying to switch to..
Question is - which issues we, as users, are able to accept and look pass them.
Its a bit baffling how in 2020 editions, we have so many little things lacking, that should be considered as basics?

I personally find these clips funny and even if they cause frustration - it quickly passes and I keep playing.
But I do see how it can put some people off completely. Im completely put off by Fifa clips, from different reasons.

It depends how seriously you take football gaming. If I spent as many hours in Master League or Career Mode as I did, say, 10 years ago. Sure, every little annoying thing about a football game would slowly and surely effect my view of the game. But these days I play for just an hour here and there so for me the basics must be right:

1. It HAS to challenge me (the old PES and FIFA games were always tough)

2. It has to feel good on the ball. And I mean the pace, shooting, passing...it needs to feel like I’m playing a football video game and not ice hockey.

My gripe with both games is that they fail with the basics.

FIFA is more guilty than PES these days in regards to getting the basics right, in my opinion of course. Fouls and a challenging single player career are vital to old skool (grumpy old men) football gamers like myself. And FIFA 19 fails spectacularly in this department and according to many guys that have played FIFA 20 Career beta, things haven’t changed. I need fouls in a career mode, it’s a huge part of football.

The AI is poor in both games and has been for ages. It’s infuriating because we’ve got good tech out there now but the developers don’t seem interested in nailing the AI. Why would they? The card game and ball opening modes that everyone plays makes the dosh now. Kids don’t care if Burnley actually do play like Sean Dyche’s Burnley. They want Luis Figo and CR7 cards but for god sake, make sure you get their faces right!

PES fails in the basics department when it comes to shooting and scoring goals. This could be improved massively when you compare it to FIFA’s unpredictable, organic feeling shooting mechanic.

But that’s where the praise starts and ends with Fifa for me. The rest of the gameplay is so downright offensively fast and frantic that I get a headache after spending just 20 minutes with it these days.

 

[Dennis_87]

That's not the point though - I'm not crying "script", I'm crying "rails". Yes, he could clear the ball at one point. But I'm not saying it isn't avoidable, I'm saying everything about this sequence is terrible.

You don't have the fluidity in your movement to respond and/or block the ball organically, only to press "pressure" and move briefly in a short straight line (the ball is the same, not free).

In each of these moments all the players (even the AI) are on rails, locked onto their actions and it all plays out like they're trying to move past each other in a corridor, NOT playing football and trying to kick the damn ball.

In FIFA it goes too far the other way, and you can kick through your standing leg to hit a shot with a defender next to you. But at least your players know how to use their bodies.

PES players remind me of this tweet I saw the other day, in that they seem to be based on aliens operating a human body for the first time:

I can see that in some cases it doesn't always look great,but in general i prefer the Pes' defence system to Fifa's Tactical Defending where it lets you contain if you press to a certain point and then an imaginary invisible wall appears to block you from getting closer to the opponent.It looks ridiculous.And you can press to manually tackle but it just generates a spastic weird looking animation which isn't very effective anyway because of how quick the passing animations are and it's a nightmare to time it right and block a pass.It mostly depends on luck than timing.
In Pes you can also tackle manually with double press if you want and it's a more controlled animation and not twitchy and very fast.

It's more effective in Pes to close the gaps and passing lanes with your defenders and respect their responsibility area instead of running and pressing with all the time like headless chickens bringing them out of their positions.
Also with this approach you kinda ''confuse'' the AI and it may pass sideways or do something else.If you just run towards them to press them all the time they'll find a way to dribble pass you and they play more straight forward in general.The guy in the gif runs mindlessly towards them to press instead of holding his ground with Sule.With a different approach he could have a different result.

On another note,Ivanka is one sexy alien indeed.

 

[mfmaxpower]

Have a little look on youtube. Takes 2 seconds before you'll find people complaining that AI defending is far too good on Fifa when you know how to use it. It's just cos it works so different to PES. Better at containing / jockying players out wide than actually tackling.


What I mean is, on Fifa, if you hold AI pressure they may not actually take the ball, but it's ridiculously difficult to get past them because the jockey you perfectly stride for stride. Yes, if I stand still they don't tackle, but who stands still on Fifa anyway? Naturally I'll want to try and beat them and lose the ball.

By contrast, on PES I pray the opposing player spams AI pressure to tackle because getting by them is so easy. They just head in a straight line towards the ball and don't react to any quick movements, so a skill move, double tap sprint, anything like that just flies past them.


This is not a PES only issue.
I mean, Fifa 18 for example, the tackling was so bad that it was more effective to just walk into a player. No animation, nothing, just walk into them and take the ball.

I was just about to cut up a Fifa 20 video and show the same thing happening as in the clip you've shared. Doesn't happen 6 times in a row like it does there, but even has a defender partially glitching inside the attacker then clearing it.

Again, this isn't 'PES good Fifa bad' comment, just that they both suffer for something similar. Fifa's is more watching the ball ricochet off 2 players 6 times before it finally bounces away and neither of them react to it.

Sounds like you're comparing online/h2h play. Honestly, I've never once played a game of PES online, so I have zero idea how those features compare. I just know that for much of its history, the FIFA community has looked at teammate contain as a rather useless feature, especially in single player. Yes, teammate contain was OP last year relative to the other defensive mechanics in online play, but I've never found it useful in single player while I use it in PES often with a solid level of success.

Like I said though, the role of the AI in defending has been changed quite a bit in FIFA this year, so it's kinda pointless comparing the features until we see FIFA 20 at release (or at least the demo).

 

[Lobbedball]

Most recent comparison:
Old trafford recreated to the smallest detail in fifa
On pes there is so much distance btw the goal post and the first row of stands,pure laziness from the devs

 

[Dennis_87]

Most recent comparison:
Old trafford recreated to the smallest detail in fifa
On pes there is so much distance btw the goal post and the first row of stands,pure laziness from the devs

Yes you're right about Old Trafford.It bugs me also that the first row of stands is more far behind the post than in real life.
But for most other authentic stadiums i think Pes does a better job than Fifa to represent them with every little detail.
Even has tunnel entrance scenes etc and there is high quality in every corner of most stadiums.
The ugly ass banners ruin a bit the overall high quality though,but ok,it's not something you notice many times during the gameplay.

 

[Chuny]

I'm curious - Because I haven't played these games in a very long time - but if we were to look for footage of PES 5, 6 or even WE 3 FE, etc... wouldn't we find that sometimes defenders gave away the ball like that and suddenly became unresponsive JUST when the AI needed it the most?.

I'm not masking my opinion inside that question. I'm truly asking it if that used to happen in the golden days or not, because I can't quite remember.

But nevertheless, here's my opinion: If we keep scrutinising every play, every single action or movement by every single player, putting it under the microscope, searching for oddities with a fine-tooth comb, that we see either when we play ourselves or when we watch videos uploaded by others, we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA.
Because we will NEVER get to a realistic level of foot-planting, responsiveness, humanity (with everything it carries with it) and yet still have enough randomness, strategical depth and players individuality, all combined in one game. I don't think that's ever going to happen during my lifespan.

 

[Madmac79]

But nevertheless, here's my opinion: If we keep scrutinising every play, every single action or movement by every single player, putting it under the microscope, searching for oddities with a fine-tooth comb, that we see either when we play ourselves or when we watch videos uploaded by others, we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA.

Worth noting that no single football game ever existed would pass this kind of scrutiny either, not even the Pes 3/5 or the Fifa 16 or whatever.

 

[Chuny]

^^
Exactly!
Y'all know my favourite game is FIFA 16 (on PC and modded to death, of course) but that doesn't mean it's 100% perfect or that we wouldn't find laughable mistakes or oddities if we put it under observation of the entire Evo-Web Community.

 

[manmachine]

But nevertheless, here's my opinion: If we keep scrutinising every play, every single action or movement by every single player, putting it under the microscope, searching for oddities with a fine-tooth comb, that we see either when we play ourselves or when we watch videos uploaded by others, we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA.

But most people scrutinising videos/things were happy enough with past games. Maybe with fifa 16 or 14, pes 17 or 13, it doesn't matter, so the assumption that "we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA" is simply not true.

What is it that makes certain games enjoyable (and yes, not a single one is perfect) while other games make us wish we didn't waste our money on them? Every person will mention different things and these are the things we are looking for to form an opinion. So I suppose it's perfectly normal and it will never stop happening. And we've seen some really bad footy games in recent years, so if anything you'd expect more scrutiny, not less. Gone are the days when we couldn't wait to get our hands on the next game confident enough that it would be another leap forward.

 

[Lobbedball]

For me the primary comparison are where the basics goes:
Let me give you an example:
I ve decided to start a new career in fifa 19 playing as liga side girona since the spanish liga is fully licensed, so to tell the difference between the two games here goes:
Fifa manages to give that match atmosphere secone to none
Fifa manages to make you every chance have an unpredictable amount of outcome especially when inside the box, in my first game vs valladolid i ve had some crazy stuff happen inside the box, like a player lobbing my keeper only to hit the crossbar come back to another player who mishits an open goal hits the woodwork and ball goes out for a goal kick,these things don t happen almost all in pes especially in the new ones simply because the ai is just as generic as it can be, with no variety whatsoever.
Fifa manages to make basic shooting as variable as it can be while keeping realistic of the outcome.
My scrunity for pes is that the things that fifa get right pes do so wrong, but what pes always manages to let us feel,is the movement on the ball is something to behold,especially how the ball travel from the foot of the player,so so realistic this is what fifa never manages to make, the ball physics in pes are second to none

 

[papinho81]

Agree, no game is perfect. Fifa16 is the game I play the most and I often find myself thinking if only this, if only that. Biggest complain for me is all teams are passing a bit too much the ball at the back and I find difficult to apply proper team pressure on them. The CPU also tends to try first shots a bit too often.

I think in the end it is matter of what aspects of the game are the most important for each one (we are likely all different in that regard.).

I said I play FIFA16 the most because I FORCE myself playing the PES20 demo and I am getting no excitement from it. I just played one now and I am tired of seeing the defence retreating to their penalty box even tough I set them for both team with maximum height. This is recreated almost perfectly in FIFA 16. Also FC Bayern, that crushed me 3-0 finished the game with 70% pass accuracy on a 20 min game on the highest difficulty (using sider) while I set them to play possession with 2 bars for the distance support. What's wrong this year? Are tactics completely broken? It used to work like a charm with 17.

I am a manual player and I found this setting really weird on the demo. Often the teammate the pass is intended too and is on the path of it does not react.

Give me the ball physic, the ball touches and players movements of 20 (and graphics ) with the tactical settings (with all its problem), positioning and player reactions to where is the ball of 17 and we can start talking. Again for me of course.

 

[Chris Davies]

But nevertheless, here's my opinion: If we keep scrutinising every play, every single action or movement by every single player, putting it under the microscope, searching for oddities with a fine-tooth comb

I think this is the issue I have, and maybe others too - nobody is doing this!

Nobody's taking a clip, slowing it down, comparing it to a previous version, showing you a player's attributes versus his real-life stats and going "Pogba has only passed backwards 12.3% of the time that he's had the ball on the left wing, inaccurate Konami".

What *is* happening is that different people have different "hard no's" and can't bear certain things. So those things stand out massively to those people, when they won't to you.

So for example, I'm an AI guy. I used to play the ML all year round because I loved that every game was different and tactics were black-and-white, i.e. a long ball team would only ever hit long balls, a tiki-taka team would never hit the ball long.

Now, someone could very easily say "but that's not realistic, you wouldn't hit the ball long if you had an easy pass to make in-front of you". Is that a valid criticism in this scenario? Yes! Of course it is! But it wouldn't bother me, because what I hate is every team playing the same way.

So, I'd ignore that bad thing, because my "hard no" bad thing doesn't happen.

Nobody expects perfection. Check it out:

Agree, no game is perfect.

Most people scrutinising videos/things were happy enough with past games [...] so the assumption that "we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA" is simply not true.

It's just that there are things we need, or can't help but notice.

I said to @Emroth the other day, I nearly started a new thread, because I'd be really interested to know what everyone's "three hard no's" are for a football game. But I think I'm the only one interested.

His #1 is "no physicality/fouls", and that's why FIFA is immediately a no for him. Probably you too, @rockstrongo. Personally, I totally agree with this, yet it's not in my top three. Mine would be... #1 AI that plays the same way every match, #2 Ping-pong passing, #3 Lack of potential for error in every pass/shot.

So I can forgive no fouls, even though it's a huge deal. It's not in my top three issues. Which shows you two things, 1) how desperate I am for the AI to be better, and 2) I'm definitely not a perfectionist...

 

[Chuny]

But most people scrutinising videos/things were happy enough with past games. Maybe with fifa 16 or 14, pes 17 or 13, it doesn't matter, so the assumption that "we will NEVER be happy with PES or FIFA" is simply not true.

What is it that makes certain games enjoyable (and yes, not a single one is perfect) while other games make us wish we didn't waste our money on them? Every person will mention different things and these are the things we are looking for to form an opinion. So I suppose it's perfectly normal and it will never stop happening. And we've seen some really bad footy games in recent years, so if anything you'd expect more scrutiny, not less. Gone are the days when we couldn't wait to get our hands on the next game confident enough that it would be another leap forward.

I assume that peple who buy either (or both) game year in, year out, time and time again must feel some sort of happiness when playing them. I don't consider any of you dumb enough to just give away your money so happily every year, for the past 10 years and still fall for the same trap.

I do get enjoyment and happiness. Even with frustrating games such as FIFA 17, 19 and PES 19. Which were very low points for me. As were PES 2014, 2015, 2016.

 

[Lobbedball]

I think this is the issue I have, and maybe others too - nobody is doing this!

Nobody's taking a clip, slowing it down, comparing it to a previous version, showing you a player's attributes versus his real-life stats and going "Pogba has only passed backwards 12.3% of the time that he's had the ball on the left wing, inaccurate Konami".

What *is* happening is that different people have different "hard no's" and can't bear certain things. So those things stand out massively to those people, when they won't to you.

So for example, I'm an AI guy. I used to play the ML all year round because I loved that every game was different and tactics were black-and-white, i.e. a long ball team would only ever hit long balls, a tiki-taka team would never hit the ball long.

Now, someone could very easily say "but that's not realistic, you wouldn't hit the ball long if you had an easy pass to make in-front of you". Is that a valid criticism in this scenario? Yes! Of course it is! But it wouldn't bother me, because what I hate is every team playing the same way.

So, I'd ignore that bad thing, because my "hard no" bad thing doesn't happen.

Nobody expects perfection. We just have different needs.
You have to be able to accept that everyone wants something different, mate.

I said to @Emroth the other day, I nearly started a new thread, because I'd be really interested to know what everyone's "three hard no's" are for a football game. But I think I'm the only one interested.

His #1 is "no physicality/fouls", and that's why FIFA is immediately a no for him. Probably you too, @rockstrongo. Personally, I totally agree with this, yet it's not in my top three. Mine would be... #1 AI that plays the same way every match, #2 Ping-pong passing, #3 Lack of potential for error in every pass/shot.

Agreed on what u said for me:
Ai super generic
Every team plays same
No shot variety on basic shooting..

 

[rockstrongo]

Personally, I totally agree with this, yet it's not in my top three. Mine would be... #1 AI that plays the same way every match, #2 Ping-pong passing, #3 Lack of potential for error in every pass/shot.

I'd say you hit the nail spot on there.
From what I've seen on the demo,for me the shooting is "ok enough" for me.
FIFA 19 is the best at it,played both 17&18 yesterday,FIFA 19 is miles ahead those two.

Ping ponging and no context in passing is my nr 1 game breaker,not fouls!
Every team playing the same way is high up too,not a long term game breaker (or maybe depends on the rest really)

When it comes to no physicality,that's a big deal for me,a no foul game doesn't break it for me,but it has to be a battle/fight on the pitch,like football is irl,if it's a lot of fouls,great,but if it's not,but still tough with a lot of battles,I'd take that.
I've reassessed FIFA 19 the past days,really good game,but right now with scripting etc,I'm having a hard time with it.
But in the long run, it has served me well, hopefully my Pes 20 will too.
Both games serves different purposes/fantasies for me.
That's why I'm hoping both new games turn out really good,even though I'm not buying FIFA day one

 

[Emroth]

Every team playing the same way is high up too,not a long term game breaker (or maybe depends on the rest really)

Its funny how even this simple statement can differ for us all.
When we say "AI plays the same way" each of us can have a different thing in mind.

For me it was a gamebreaker on Pes19. But when I say "AI plays the same way" Im thinking about low cross, pass and tap in, with surgical precision, into the top corner.

So Im happy with Pes20. I see AI doing skills, vary in set pieces, going down the wings, through the middle and sometimes surprises me with shot from distance. Im not getting the feeling that every match feels the same, at least not so far.

Chris might be looking at this with wider approach, getting annoyed that Fulham plays similar, direct football as Juventus. And he is right to do so.

Like he said - its just a matter of our own priorities and preferences and what is standing out for us.

Its only starting to be scary, when the only thing people are noticing, is that Neymar is missing left ear ring..